Iceland has a stunning landscape with glaciers galore … but is more properly fire island. Lava, earthquakes eruptions and volcanoes dominate life and world headlines.

Around Christmas 2023, an eruption forced people from their homes in the fishing port of Grindavik. One year and six eruptions later – the townspeople are back. But another eruption nearby is spewing lava into the car park of the famous Blue Lagoon. By the time you hear this podcast, that eruption could be over… or much worse.

Yet despite all the risk and uncertainty, many Icelanders would say they live here because of their volcanoes not despite them. Why? That’s what this podcast is all about.

Credits

Thanks to Easyjet for flights – direct to Reykjavik each weekday from Edinburgh. 

I travelled to the Westman Islands in a Europcar vehicle (complete with winter tyres) from Keflavik airport, took the dual fuel Herjolfur ferry (government owned and council run) courtesy of Business Iceland and stayed at the family run Hotel Vestmannaeyjar thanks to Visit South Iceland.

Accommodation in Reykjavik was kindly provided by podcast listener Scott Riddell. 

Big thanks also to interviewees – 

Laufey Sif Lárusdóttir who runs a pizzeria and Ölverk brewery using geothermal steam in Hveragerði with husband Elvar. She's also mum to three small boys. Respect.

Páll Zóphóníasson was once Mayor of Heimaey (main town on Westman Islands) and town engineer at the time of the 1973 eruption. Tax office staff, Jóhanna Kristín Gunnlaugsdóttir and Ròsa Sveinsdòttir were just children back then.

Kári Valgeirsson is Science Communicator at the Hellisheiði power plant – one of the largest single-site geothermal power plants on the planet. Daily tours available.

Thanks also to Limma and Gudrun Hannesdottir, 

Researched, recorded and produced by Lesley Riddoch

Edited by Pat Joyce

Gothenburg in Sweden once boasted the world's largest shipyards, but in the face of Japanese and Korean competition, the oil crisis and a world economic downturn, the city was brought to its knees in the 1980s, with 5 kms of empty dockland and 20 thousand people without jobs. So far, so very like the Clyde.

But though shipbuilding was down, Gothenburg was not out.

The City Council bought the empty shipyards for one Swedish krona – that’s 2 pence - financed new house-building, new secondary schools and linked up with Chalmers University to set up Lindholmen Science Park. It attracted the Swedish mobile phone maker, Ericsson who created a cluster of ten thousand people in other IT companies around its new HQ. This inter-dependency helped the sector survive the dot.com crash.

The biggest advance though, followed the biggest setback, when Sweden’s innovation agency, rejected a big bid for an open research area at Lindholmen. Undaunted, the Science Park owners (council and business) went ahead without state funds, seconding thirty people for one year to fine tune their plans. 

Now, 375 companies operate on dockland that wasn’t worth tuppence thirty years ago, Gothenburg has become Sweden's R&D capital and more people are employed today in tech jobs on the docklands than ever worked in the shipyards.  Local car-maker Volvo is planning to go fully electric by 2030 and 100 billion Euros is being invested to connect both banks of the river. As the city shapes up to celebrate its 400th anniversary this year, recalling the part played by Scots in its phenomenal success, the excitement is almost palpable.

Nordic Horizons Director Lesley Riddoch visited the city in May 2023 to find out how Gothenburg has turned itself around.
More info https://goteborgco.se

Thanks to

Christian Borg of Business Region Gothenburg 

Jonas Eriksson Head of Gothenburg Green City zone

Jessica Vialleton, Hotel Eggers

Hjördis Fohrman, Jonsered Museum

Stepping up Sustainability West Sweden

Eva Lehman Goteborg.com

Finland has a particular source of propaganda to deal with in the shape of Russia. Misinformation attacks have focused on familiar issues like immigration and the EU, but also Finland’s application to join NATO. Now the Finns have devised a strategy to teach all social groups to spot fake news and fact-check. This includes lessons in community colleges, digital literacy toolkits and a critical thinking curriculum in schools. As a result, online interference by Russia in Finnish politics appears to have waned.

Now other countries are looking to learn from Finland’s strategy.

Jussi Toivanen is a former adviser to the Finnish PM on media literacy and was recently appointed Head of Communications at Finland’s National Cyber Security Centre. He believes the country’s cyber security success is due to something deeper; it is a cohesive ‘superpower’ - a society with high levels of trust in institutions and the media, plus a strong sense of identity rooted in human rights and the rule of law. He offers an unexpected insight – ‘the first line of cyber defence is the Kindergarten teacher’…

We also hear from Chris Silver – a researcher and PhD student on memory and the Scottish press - and Claire Elazebbi, a member of the Scottish Government's cyber security team. 

Finland has a 1300 km long land border with Russia, it fought two wars in the 1940s to defend then reclaim lost territory, and is now applying to join NATO. 

There, most knowledge of Finland ends.
Which is a shame.

Because a staple of Finnish life could offer a permanent solution to supply crises in Britain – if we could learn to rely on cooperatives not corporations to deliver. 
The picture shows composite wooden hand-basins and baths - a unique feature of the Solo Sokos Hotel in Lahti- part of a larger S-Group cooperative with more than 3 million members. How can such a massive coop give its local hotel managers freedom to make their own decisions? Lesley Riddoch went to Finland's seventh largest city to find out. 
With thanks to Risto Turanen, Kari Huhtala, VisitFinland, Finnair and Sokos Hotels.   

It's twelve years since Dan Wynn and Lesley Riddoch set up a think tank to focus on the policy successes of Scotland's Nordic neighbours. Since then, Nordic Horizons has organised almost 70 meetings - most of them in person until the pandemic lockdown in 2020. Now Nordic Horizons meets online - less disruption and travel for speakers and more access for Scots living outside Edinburgh. We're also producing monthly podcasts of recent events and edited versions of some 'Golden Oldies' - including a talk about Norway's education system where children attend kindergarten (often outdoor) until the age of six - a school starting age the SNP conference is set to discuss in October 2022. It seems many lessons learned over the past decade are still very relevant.

So why did NH start and is the Nordic focus still relevant? Has the group made any real change to Scottish Government policy? What next?

Here's a short podcast with online editor Chris Smith in the driving seat and Steering Group members Mike Danson, Dan Wynn and Lesley Riddoch.

'Finland doesn’t have a long history of Kings and castles. We have always been occupied. When we finally became free the country was built on language, literature, music, paintings. Sibelius created the distinctive sound of Finland. You can hear his enthusiasm for the country – the Finnish sagas, the stories, folklore and the language that is ours and only ours - but at the same time you can hear how he was moving towards becoming a universal composer.' 
Who wouldn't want to know more about Sibelius after hearing charismatic rising classical star Dalia Stasevska explain why she became Chief Conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra in 2021 and Artistic Director of the world's only annual Sibelius Festival?  
Nordic Horizons Director and longtime Sibelius fan Lesley Riddoch certainly did. She recorded and produced this special podcast during a trip to Lahti's Sibelius Festival during early September 2022 . Sadly, rules on copyright mean no excerpts of music can be included - but there's mention of the Lemminkainen Suite (including the Swan of Tuonela), Violin Concerto, Tempest, Finlandia and the Wood Nymph. All are easy to sample online. The interviewees are former manager of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Tuomas Kinberg; Dalia Stasevska (mentioned above) and Ainola museum guide at Sibelius' former lakeside home, Christina Kananen. 

Many thanks to the Sibelius Festival, Finnair and Visit Finland for making the trip possible. Thanks to Maarit Kytöharju for permission to use her image of Dalia Stasevska in full flight and to Chris Smith for editing the audio material.   

Is Scotland set to follow Norway with a shift to kindergarten for the early years and a school starting age 6/7 not the present 4/5?
Just 12 per cent of countries send five-year-olds to school. Almost all are former parts of the British Empire, clinging to a model devised to release women from childcare as quickly as possible, so they could work in Victorian factories instead. Child welfare played no part in plumping for the present school age. That’s why Ireland and Cyprus (former British colonies) recently moved away from the British model to the European norm of 6/7.

It’s high time Scotland joined them, because all the evidence shows children learn vital soft skills like sharing, communication, cooperation, creativity and confidence through play long before they can finally control motor functions sufficiently to sit still and start formal education. The urge to stuff the three R’s into 4 and 5 year-old brains may be understandable in a competitive, dog-eat-dog world – but it’s not rational, helpful, productive or kind. It prompts social, emotional and mental health problems in some children forced into formal learning prematurely and 'failing' tests simply because they aren’t ready. Certainly, at five and seven Britain’s ‘force-fed’ kids are ahead in literacy. But by 9, play-based European kids are soaring ahead – and stay ahead for the rest of their school careers and lives.

Added to that, many Norwegian kids attend outdoor kindergarten. Here NH Director Lesley Riddoch talks to Turid Boholm who set up the Bukkespranget Barnehage (literally ‘child garden’) with support from local parents in Arctic Tromsø. Lesley visited in the winter darkness of January to see how kids ilearn, play and eat outdoors, even in the freezing Norwegian winter. Turid describes how the kindergarten brings parents on board and produces confident children able to take care of themselves and of one another.

Why did district heating start on farms in Denmark?
Are the Norwegians wiser to depend on electrification?
Could Scotland do something game changing with smart, local energy networks?
Will nuclear help Sweden reach net zero?
This 50 minute podcast of the COP 26 - Nordic Verdict event tackles all these big questions with contributions from Viktoria Raft, a former energy journalist and co-founder of the gender equality network for women in energy, Kraftkvinnorna; Tore Furevik, Professor in physical oceanography at the Geophysical Institute, University of Bergen and director of the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre. Keith Baker, a Researcher in Fuel Poverty and Energy Policy at Glasgow Caledonian University & member of the Energy Working Group at Common Weal …. and Søren Hermansen, Director of the Energy Academy on Samsøe - the small Danish island that won UN climate leader award for 2021 at COP26.

The event was chaired by journalist and Nordic Horizons Director Lesley Riddoch, who co-edited this podcast with Chris Smith.

Since Scotland's 'local' elections in May 2022, there’s been much debate about coalitions and control. But there’s a bigger question – are Scottish councils with an average of 175 thousand inhabitants really local at all? And does that not matter?

The EU average council has a relatively meagre 10 thousand inhabitants. And Vágur, on the isolated southern Faroese island of Suðuroy, has just 1377 folk. But they’re doing pretty well after self-building a Sports High School and a 50m swimming pool to honour their local swimming champion and witnessing a population boom after 70 years of decline. All pioneered by their ultra local municipality. And although the Faroes is tiny (just 55k population) and has its own devolved parliament (the Løgting), there are 28 other local councils – one with just 80 inhabitants.

It’s a similar story in Norway with 356 councils – a total set to rise as municipalities forced to merge by the recent Conservative Government, are starting to separate again. But in Scotland no change is proposed in our 32 ‘local’ authorities. Even though Highland Council is the size of a small European state.

So big or small local government – who’s got it right?

This is a podcast edited from the conversation between three Nordic experts talking about Russian aggression in Ukraine and the way it is unravelling 70 years of neutrality and non-alignment in Scandinavia. It deals with opinion polls suggesting most Swedes and Finns want to join NATO, but questions American commitment to the Alliance - in light of remarks made five years ago by President Trump suggesting NATO is 'obsolete' and encouraging Europeans to take over the defence of their own continent. Our speakers ponder whether the time has arrived for an EU defence force.

Dr. Hans Mouritzen, Senior Researcher, Foreign policy and diplomacy, Danish Institute for International Studies:
Dr. Johanna Vuorelma, Centre for European Studies, University of Helsinki,
Dr. Iver B. Neumann, Director, Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Norway
Professor Lynn Jamieson, Chair Scottish CND,
Chaired by Lesley Riddoch, Director Nordic Horizons.